This blog, inspired by "The Baby Bonding Book For Dads: Building a Closer Connection to Your Baby," talks about all the ways dads and children can bond. Here you can read news about the book, advice about parenting, and real-life stories of dads, moms, and babies

Monday, January 7, 2013

Dads Emotional Problems May Harm Their Toddlers' Health

A new scientific study from Norway suggests that dads need to get our mental health in order BEFORE fathering children

Dad's Distress May Make for Troubled Toddler

By Cole Petrochko, Staff Writer, MedPage Today

Published: January 07, 2013

An expectant father's mental health problems may be linked to his child's behavioral and emotional difficulties early in life, researchers found.

A Norwegian cohort found paternal psychological distress was associated with a small but positive risk of a child developing behavioral difficulties, emotional problems, and impaired social functioning, according to Anne Lise Kvalevaag, PhD candidate, of Helse Fonna HF in Haugesund, Norway, and colleagues.

Higher levels of emotional distress in expectant fathers were associated with higher levels of emotional and behavioral problems in children, they wrote online in Pediatrics.

Earlier research has found ties between psychiatric disorders in mothers and "increased risk of socioemotional and behavioral problems in their children," the authors noted.

"The current study demonstrates that there is a consistent positive predictive association between fathers' parental mental health status and their children's socioemotional and behavioral development at 36 months of age," they concluded. "The ﬁndings are of importance for clinicians and policymakers in their planning of healthcare in the perinatal period because this represents a signiﬁcant opportunity for preventive intervention."

The researchers examined associations between paternal mental health and children's socioemotional and behavioral development through a prospective, population-based cohort of 31,663 kids in the Norwegian Mother and Child Cohort Study.

Fathers' mental health information was acquired through the self-reported Hopkins Symptoms Checklist (SCL-5) at weeks 17 or 18 of gestation. SCL-5 is an indicator of level of global mental distress, mainly symptoms of anxiety and depression, and the cutoff point for SCL-5 is 2.00, they authors explained.

Data on the child's emotional and behavioral development -- as well as the mother's pre- and postnatal mental health -- were taken at 36 months after birth. Maternal mental health was evaluated through the same questionnaire fathers filled out. Child development was evaluated through three parental-response questionnaires on mental health, socioemotional problems, and behavior.

The mean SCL-5 score for the fathers was 1.13. Three percent of the fathers had a score above the cutoff of 2.00.

In a crude analysis with behavioral difficulties as the dependent variable, paternal psychological distress was significantly associated with a child's behavioral (odds ratio 1.28, 95% CI 1.04 to 1.58) and emotional difficulties (OR 1.65, 95% CI 1.36 to 2.00) at age 36 months, as well as social functioning (OR 1.32, 95% CI 1.08 to 1.62).

When the model was fully adjusted, associations between behavioral difficulties and father's distress lost significance (OR 1.13, 95% CI 0.91 to 1.40, P=0.3), though the other associations remained significant.

The authors noted "a number of possible mechanisms could account for this association" including a prenatal genetic effect of paternal psychological distress, negative outcomes of depression on mothers resulting in negative outcomes for the child, and prenatal health predicting postnatal health, which "may account for some of the associations seen."

The authors noted several limitations with their study. The cohort had a 38.5% participation rate, which could have resulted in selection bias. Additionally, survey answers were self-reported and can be affected by rater bias.

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James di Properzio is a freelance writer and editor, specializing in making technical information interesting and accessible. He used to say he “probably wanted to have a kid … someday.” When his wife became pregnant, James worked from home which gave him the chance to become a more involved dad, despite the fact that he had never held an infant before. Now James and his wife, Jennifer Margulis, have four children.

Jennifer Margulis has eaten fried crickets in Niger, performed the cancan in America, and appeared on prime-time television in France. Her work has been published in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Military History Quarterly, Ms Magazine, and dozens of other national magazines and newspapers. She is also the author of Why Babies Do That: Baffling Baby Behavior Explained; the award-winning anthology, Toddler: Real-Life Stories of Those Fickle, Irrational, Urgent, Tiny People We Love; and The Business of Baby: What Doctors Don't Tell You, What Corporations Try to Sell You, and How to Put Your Pregnancy, Childbirth, and Baby Before Their Bottom Line. A former Fulbright Scholar, she lives in Ashland, Oregon with her husband and four children.

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